Rewriting children's literature: Yay or Nay?

Great Debates
1

I don’t see myself as a revisionist in any way, but an issue came up in my book club that I ended up taking a strong position on.

There are two children’s classics, Mary Poppins and Dr. Doolittle, that are currently in print with revised chapters. In both cases, the original chapters contained very negative stereotypes. In Dr. Doolittle, the original Prince Bumpo (an African prince) begs the good doctor to make him white, as clearly that is the best way to be. The revised version skirts this episode, and moves directly into other adventures. Prince Bumpo is still a lovable goofball, but his goofiness is no longer tied into his race. In Mary Poppins, the orignal has Mary and the children paying a visit to the North, South, East and West, where they meet up with Eskimos, Mandarins, Pickaninnies (oddly enough, they seem to be characters from the American South, but living in Africa), and Red Indians. In the revision, the group from Cherry-Tree Lane meets up with animals from each of these regions.

In the case of Mary Poppins, the author wrote the revised chapter herself, although from her journal, she seems to have done so grudgingly. I’m not sure who was in charge of Dr. Doolittle.

Several people in my book club are resolute that these revisions are a bad idea, one step away from censorship. They also maintained that anyone who has objections to the originals is being too sensitive.

So, what say the teeming millions?

I am a supporter of the revisions. No doubt there are many parents, teachers, and librarians who would make an effort to read the originals along with their children and clarify and discuss the issues presented. But what about the child who happens across these books without an adult? Will a child who would otherwise enjoy Mary Poppins be turned off from it when they encounter an African women speaking gibberish and waving around a piece of watermelon?

Unlike a book like Little House on the Prairie (which has attracted complaints about the negative portrayal of Indians), neither of these books is trying to recreate a particular time in history. One is about talking to animals, and the other is about having wacky adventures with a grumpy nanny.

I have to say that I’m not sure I can articulate why I think these revisions are okay, while at the same time I wouldn’t ever support changing a book intended for an adult reader, nor would I want to edit a children’s book where the stereotypes were so wrapped up in the general plot that it would change the scope of the story.

Would it be unrealistic to propose that both versions should be available, so adults can enjoy, and share with their children if they choose, the original books they grew up with?

I can’t believe I’m arguing for sanitizing literature. Is this sanitizing literature, or is it presenting quality literature for children in a way that is more accessable for more children? Is there a slippery slope issue here?

2

I find that bad/wrong stereotypes just make for a bad book. Childrens literature is always evolving and always being revised. If it doesen’t keep up with the times it will be replaced. To make a book better is not censorship.

I would support changing both adult and childrens literature as long as the changes are good. We shouldn’t look at a book and only copy it if we can make it better. I read mainly fantasy and thats all I expect from a book, fantasy. History is for history books.:slight_smile: I wouldn’t try to revise a book that is trying to show the perspective a certain time.

3

I was horrified, at age 12, to read the Prince Bumpo passages in Dr. Doolittle. (Of course, I was raised in a way that I would have found those passages upsetting.)

On the other hand, Eddie Murphy was so enchanted by the Doolittle books, overall, that he insisted on remaking them–not to “correct” them, but because he wanted to share in disseminating the basic stories.

I prefer to see the books not bowdlerized and then make sure that my kids are aware of the bad images found in the originals. (It lets them see that racism and stereotyping is not the exclusive domain of the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood, but that it can be perpetrated by people who are doing good things (creating wonderful stories) who did not examine the bad images that they were spreading.)

4

As a published author, it is my right to either do a re-write, allow someone else to do a re-write or stand by my work.

You can preview what your children will read or only allow them to read books recommended by some ‘pc correct children’s book bureau’. You can add footnotes or a preview warning. You or the community can censor me and pull my books off the shelf or require an R rating or burn them.

As long as I kept the copywrite, no one has the right to change a word. (Of course, i wrote a politically correct guidebook, so I don’t think anyone is going to do anything buy plagarize me)

Should Kipling’s Kim have a universal word search and replace ‘Oriental’ with ‘Asian’ because that is the PC term in the US? Okay, should we replace the Tibetan lama chanting in Chinese with chanting in Tibetan because the former is factually incorrect? What about Mark Twain and IIRC Huck Finn. Again, IIRC there is a character called ‘nigger jim’

It is a slippery slope.

5

Just to clarify something in China Guy’s post, re Huck Finn: although a lot of older writing about the novel makes reference to “Nigger Jim” as if it were the character’s name, in the novel itself he’s just called Jim. This isn’t to say that the word “nigger” isn’t bandied about frequently, of course – but, like delphica’s example of Little House on the Prairie, it needs to be viewed in historical (and, in the case of Twain, satirical) context.

As for the question posed by the OP – I’m not sure. I think it’s an issue similar to that posed in this thread: the originals are a lesson on people’s attitudes in the past and as such shouldn’t be buried forever, but we should probably also let kids experience the good stories without the ugly side as well…

6

I guess a good question to ask would be “why do I want my kids to read these stories?”. There are plenty of equally good modern children’s stories that have messages that I can agree with.
I read these children’s classics to my nieces and nephews for many reasons, but basically it comes down to wanting to share with them the stories I loved as a kid and wanting to expose them to another world. I guess the second reason is the same major reason why I read adult classics.
I wouldn’t want to see someone bowdlerise Steinbeck or Dickens or Hugo because the social implications aren’t socially acceptable in 2001. That’s what I love about them, the fact that they can tell me so much about how societies thought processes have changed.
Now I wouldn’t expect my 8-year-old niece to get involved on that sort of level, but she does know right and wrong and that these stories are fictional. She no more believes that being white is the only way to be than she believes that trespass, theft and murder is acceptable because someone suffers from a growth hormone problem (the basic morality underlying Jack and the Beanstalk). The fact that the people in these fantasy worlds think this way is what makes the stories truly magical. This isn’t more “See Dick Run” everydayness, it’s a magical world where she can think outside the everyday, regulated world for a while. People act in unpredictable ways and she can try to analyse why. She doesn’t realise she’s doing it but I can tell by the questions she asks that she is really making an effort to understand why these people are behaving in this way. Even when these 19th century characters in Peter Pan, Mary Poppins etc go back home they go home to a world that, to an 8-year-old, never really existed. I can tell her it was a long time ago but to her that’s just like another planet. These aren’t real people, they don’t live in the real world and their actions can’t be applied to the real world any more than Bugs Bunny’s can. But it’s the very fact that they live in a completely magical world that makes the stories so enjoyable.

Basically if people object to these stories and think they can do better they probably should, but the original authors wrote those stories to entertain with perhaps just a hint of education. They fulfil these functions well, and if revisionists think they are socially unacceptable then perhaps they should spend some time discussing these books with their kids. Hell they’d probably get a kick out o re-reading them. Changing the stories and pretending that people never thought of Africans as “Little Black Sambo” only serves to hide the past from young children. It is at the age when they are being exposed to these stories that they are best able to be educated about the existence and effects of stereotypes and variant morality. They understand that right and wrong isn’t black and white and that other people believe things their families don’t, while still forming opinions of their own. I believe that hiding the past from children can only have the same effect as hiding the past from adults: an unavoidable repetition of the same errors.
[/soapbox]

7

Absolutely NAY, especially when it’s done purely to cash in on an existing classic such as C.S. Lewis’ Narnia stories.

8

True, Dr. Dolittle and Mary Poppins are not history books per se, but they are historical documents in the sense that they reflect the times in which they were created. I guess in the end they’re just books, and if all you want is the cute story you can change them all you want. But I am opposed to the originals being totally forgotten.

9

I am 100% opposed to revising children’s books. Reasons:

  1. The slippery slope. Where do you stop? Many, many children’s books have some content that some group doesn’t like. So how do we decide which ones to ‘fix’ and which ones to allow to stand? Look at the lists of banned or challenged books, then look at the reasons - and ask yourself if you really want every one of those books altered. If you don’t, then you don’t want any books altered - because believe me, you will not be the one making the decisions on what gets changed.

  2. The historical context. Even though these are works of fiction not necessarily intended to recreate a given time period, they are nonetheless educational about the time period in which they were written. When you change them, you also change what they convey about those times. This is dangerous because they provide context. You’ll never understand why civil rights movements were necessary if you never see examples of what it was like before. And nothing drives this home like an appalling passage in an otherwise good book.

  3. Parental responsibility. If you aren’t comfortable with your child reading books with certain kinds of content, then it’s your responsibility to make sure he doesn’t. Not a library’s, not the publishing industry’s, not anyone else’s. Yours. Because it is your right to decide what your children read, it is also your responsibility to watch what your children read.

  4. The market factor. If the book is truly unacceptable, with no redeeming value, it will go out of print in an eyeblink, and children won’t be exposed to it; they’ll be reading instead whatever literature replaces it. In other words, there’s already a method for correction built into the system - we don’t need another one. Especially since the one we already have doesn’t set any alarming precedents or open any Pandora’s boxes.

10

you make some good points, with which I completely agree. however, arguement no 1 and 4 can also be used to advocate childrens books editing. Allow me to elaborate:

To keep books “readable” by a young audience you will have to edit to some extent every few years. Some words fall into disuse or change in meaning etc. A language is constantly changing and if you keep to the original wording, an otherwise perfectly good book not be read.
Now it is a bit of a leap, but i believe that allong the same lines, certain outdated metaphores or clice’s are being updated.
–note, I’m talking about books intended for children. As an adult, I want to read “Through the Looking Glass” in the original version because I don’t mind strugling through some obscure words every once in a while. Both the childrens version and the original version can exist side by side.

The market factor is exactly why these books are being edited. There is a demand for classic childrens books that do not expose the child to worldviews the parent does not think apropriate. This demand is simply being met. There is also a demand for the original version of the same book. I don’t think there is anything wrong with this.

I’m sure that when the parent thinks it appropriate, he/she will expose the child to the original version. Reading both versions may actually be better that reading onlyt the original!

11

What Delphica said is that children’s books should not be changed unless they are historical works, and that adult books should be changed as well. Delphica also said that the person who makes these decisions ought to be Frazier’s ex-wife, Lilith.

What Sterra said is that books are made better by changing them and that every book ought to be changed twice a year.

Tomndebb said that Eddie Murphy was traumatized by Dr. Doolitle and that he wants his two movies edited to remove all his lines in them.

ChinaGuy said that he is not a writer and that all books should be burned.

Katisha said that ChinaGuy is insane.

Gaspode said that we should hide the past from children, and that Jack and the Beanstalk is derisive of dwarves.

Gary Kumquat said that C.S. Lewis is a transvestite.

Kyomara said that all people want are cute stories and that Mary Poppins is a lesbian.

Deepbluesea said that no one writes books, and that parents are not responsible for what their children do.

Puk said Deepbluesea made a bunch of lousy points.

As for me, I never posted this.

12

ok, maybe I don’t agree with deepblue’s conclusion :). I agree with the points he made though.

13

Just in case anyone missed the rhetorical devices that Lib was using:
what tomndebb said was that Eddie Murphy loved the stories despite the presence of the Prince Bumpo passages. I don’t think it’s up to later “enhancers” to remove “errors” (particularly “social errors”) from books, given that even the people who are the “victims” of such “errors” can enjoy the original works.

If your kids are reading, you should be familiar with their books. If there are unsettling passages (to them or to you), then it is your responsibility to deal with those issues.

14

To me, the lesson that good, nice people were/are/can be racists was an invaluble lesson that I hope every child will be exposed to. Whenever you see documentaries about the civil rights movement they present “the racist” as a huge white southern male with three teeth and a hound dog, who walks around with a lynching rope always at hand. The racist is so completly different than modern children that you don’t even have to worry that you might be that yourself–it is something complely alien, a freak from the past. It never causes you to stop and reflect on your own behavior, on the possibility that you youself harbor racist assumptions: I mean, even if you tend to think most black people are better at sports than white people and that they do more drugs, you’re well educated and you’d never lynch anyone, so you must not be a racist. Seeing that intelligent, well-educated, compassionate people were just as suseptable to racist assumptions as anyone else teaches us a greeaat deal about human nature and ourselves. I think that is a lesson you can start learning as a child.

15

In some ways, I’m torn between revision and not. I mean these books are classics, written before the time of political correctness but some have obvious racial slander in them, even if the author wrote the context innocently because he or she was raised in an era where this was accepted.

Like the Dr. Doolittle example. I’ve not figured out why the Mary Poppins example should have been altered at all.

Here though, is where the conflict comes in. Both are works of art in their original form. If they are altered, then they are cheapened and should be sold as the ‘revised’ version to warn people. Would you revise some of the Great Masters of painting because they painted in something now considered offensive on some of their canvasses? Though, I dimly recall some famous painter’s work actually being ‘dressed’ with cloth to conceal a nude form for a few years but it was never actually altered.

I guess I would have to say no to any alterations of books. No one has altered Mien Kampf (sp) by Hitler, nor has anyone censored the museum containing records and pictures of the Holocaust nor several shocking works of art created today, like the religious painting made from dung and the movie portraying Jesus as a homosexual.

Cartoons have been censored and altered that are historic to remove some violence and racial scenes and the effect has been to ruin the continuity. A very famous comedy duo of the past is seen as being very discriminatory and demeaning to Blacks so their historic work is kept from being shown on Television; Amos and Andy.

We need to accept the bad parts of the past as well as the good because it is history and we all need to know it.

The Bible contains quite a few things that are politically incorrect, but it is not being censored nor altered. Like the contents where women are considered property, displayed as devious, sneaky and untrustworthy, who can pull a man down. I shows how it was acceptable for a greedy son to deceive his dying, blind father to gain control of the family and gives family ties a whole new concept by showing sons murdering each other to gain power and going on to be rich and famous. Plus the Bible is a very male oriented book, with the majority of the wisdom, power and righteousness going to the men.

Talk about being PC incorrect, but nothing in it has been censored.

The same with the Koran. In it, it is acceptable to kill anyone insulting or defaming a ‘priest,’ to kill nonbelievers, to wage holy wars and even to restricting the rights of women and telling people how to dress.

That has not been censored.

So, no. Classics are works of art and they should not be censored. I mean, we have thousands of stories and scores of films where the enemy was always Russian, written during the cold war. Should we censor all of them now that the Cold War has ended? People found that religious picture made from animal dung as offensive as could be, but it was allowed to be put on display because it is art, so what makes classic books written by long deceased authors vulnerable to being butchered by ‘do gooders’?

Leave them alone. If we followed the PC guide, then all classic westerns portraying Indian and Cowboy battles would be junked, destroying the works of great actors. All movies made during WW2 showing the Japanese and Germans in a bad light would have to be junked.

Classic works should be left unchanged.

16

I thought I already posted this, but I don’t see it, so I’m gonna try again.

puk, a few responses to your rebuttal.

  1. You never did say how my first point could be used to support revising books; you only mentioned the fourth, that I could see.

  2. I realize that my fourth point alone could be taken as a rationale for changing texts. That’s why it’s fourth; those points are intended to be taken as a cluster, not individually. I’m saying, it’s a bad idea because of X, Y, and Z - and it’s unnecessary because of A.

  3. You don’t need to change the language in children’s books every few years to keep up with the times. First, kids aren’t that dumb. I read books from the 1920s (E. Nesbit) with no trouble when I was 8; the kids I know today do the same thing. By the time kids are reading long chapter books, their context interpretation skills are fairly well developed.

Also, after talking to my Loved One, a children’s librarian, I’d like to add a point (for general consumption).

Consider the audience. The kids who are reading children’s classics are neither young nor stupid. They are smart, skilled readers. They are not going to be either heavily influenced or heavily traumatized by a racist passage in an otherwise good book; however, they may just be able to learn something from it, as discussed in other posts above. In other words, kids who are prepared to read books of this type are also prepared to insulate themselves against any deleterious effects of the kinds of racist passages we’re discussing.

(Oh, and just for ease of pronoun use - I’m a she.)

17

Thank you all for the very thoughtful replies.

I absolutely agree with tomndebb and everyone else who pointed out that parents should be responsible for dealing with the issues raised in their kids’s books. puk mentioned something that I hadn’t thought about previously, that the market for these books is being driven by the parents who prefer their children to read the “nice” versions. But I keep coming back to those children who are not blessed with responsible parents who are engaged in their children’s education. I can only imagine that it might be very shocking to a child who picks up Mary Poppins from the library shelf, and follows Michael and Jane along on their adventures, only to find midway through the book that he (the reader) is not one of the adventurers, but rather the butt of the joke.

I’m not really a follower of Eddie Murphy, and I haven’t seen his Dr. Doolittle movie. From what I understand, the plot of the movie doesn’t take that much from the books, other than the obvious point that he can talk to the animals. I tried doing a google search to see what, if anything, Murphy has said about the books, but was unsuccessful in finding anything other than movie reviews. If anyone has a link to something relevant, I would appreciate it.

China Guy, I don’t think copyright was violated in either of these cases. The author did the Mary Poppins rewrites herself, and Hugh Lofting’s son approved the revisions to Dr. Doolittle. Christopher Lofting writes in the afterword:

“After much soul searching the consensus was that changes should be made. The deciding factor was the strong belief that the author himself would have immediately approved of making the alterations. Hugh Lofting would have been appalled at the suggestion that any part of his work could give offense and would have been the first to have made the changes himself.”

I guess we have to decide if we think the author’s son truly knows beyond a doubt that his father would have wanted the changes made. I don’t know a lot about copyright law, but I believe that if Christopher Lofting inherited his father’s estate, he is able to authorize any changes. Am I way off on this?

Oddly enough, Gary Kumquat, it was the Narnia books that I had in mind when I mentioned that it would be impossible to change stereotypes in some books because they are so wrapped up in the plot. How could one ever excise the nasty depiction of Islamic peoples in the Narnia books? (And I love these books, I was raised on them.) At first I was nervous that the article linked to was about editing Narnia. I think it’s slightly different that “new” books would be published. Although I wouldn’t have an interest in reading them myself, I don’t see much harm in that. If anything, I think you would find that kids would read them and say “Hey, you know, seven of these books are really good, and the rest of them are sort of blandly okay.” An interesting introduction to issues of authorial voice. As a kid, I remember being very excited when I realized I could figure out on my own which Nancy Drews were written by which ghost writer.

18

delphica, if Christopher Lofting was made literary execturo in the will then, yes he can authorise changes. I’m uncertain whether this is an automatic right which goes with inheriting the copyright and the right to royalties. I’m Mr P’s literary executor and we made sure to put it in his will and inform the publishers.

I’m wondering if these changes lead to a new copyright and will mean that the books don’t go into the public domain for another 50 years.

I’m not sure what I really think about changing the books. If it changes the storyline substantially, then that’s a problem but changing characters slightly is not a big deal to my mind. It already happens a lot when books for children are published for the US market. US editions are different to UK and Australian editions. I guess I can view these changes as just a further step on that continuum.

WRT the Narnia books - they’re just conducting a cynical marketing exercise IMO ;).

19

Lots of good points here on a good question.

I think age should be an important factor in what is read or given to read to a child. I got ahold of a paper back copy of Jaws and was nearly finished reading it when a friend’s mother told my mother that it was filled with bad words and I shouldn’t be reading it. Well, I was just young enough that the “bad words” went right over my head and I ignored them. I loved the shark parts!

A couple of years ago I was looking for the Raggedy Anne books for a gift to go with one of the dolls and was told by the bookseller that I’d be better off buying the book and making up a story of my own to go with the pictures. She didn’t think the stories were on a par with the dolls and any reasonable adult could tell a better story than what was written in the books.

If the child is young, I’d skip the parts I thought unsuitable, but I’d like to have the originals on hand for when the child is old enough to read the story on their own. Hopefully they would ask me about the questionable parts or I’d remember them, either way.

Another way to look at this is to ask if you read the real Pooh books by A. A. Milne or were you satisfied with the Disney versions?
Jois

20

No, no, no, I said that all people want is cherry-poppin cute lesbians. Please do not misquote me again.